Investor Relations
Shareholders structure
As of February 1st, 2024
Famille Swenden
12.7%
Lune Rouge
10.7%
William Vanderfelt
8.6%
Robert Taub
5.2%
Nikolaos Sofronis
5.1%
Christian Dumolin
4.0%
Les Abatteurs Jacques Elément
3.5%
Others
50.3%
Robert Blain
Chairman of the Board
Co-CEO of Groupe Lune Rouge and President of Guy Laliberté’s family office, Robert Blain, FCPA, has also contributed to the growth of Cirque du Soleil as its Chief Financial Officer. For over 20 years, he has cultivated relationships with prominent companies, such as MGM, Disney and Apple Corps (Beatles), as well as the trustees of the Michael Jackson and Elvis Presley estates. This long and illustrious career has led him to be involved in various committees and boards of directors; most notably, the One Drop Foundation, the CHU Sainte-Justine Foundation and the Guy Laliberté Foundation.
Nikolaos Sofronis
President & CEO
Mr. Sofronis is a Member of the Board of Aya Gold & Silver (AYA.TO) and the Chairman of the Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance Committee. The Aya’s community engagements are focused on the education, health and agricultural programs. He served on multiple boards and was the Chairman of Cyprotex, a bioscience company listed on the London Stock Market. Mr. Sofronis is a Board Member of Up2Green, an NGO created in 2009, which is concerned to provide concrete responses to climate changes. Up2Green is active on five continents. The commitments are the preservation of water resources, the reforestation, the soil restoration and the limitation of erosion. Mr. Sofronis was founder and president of BS Family Office Assets Management, Geneva, a firm specializing in private equity mainly in the mining and the natural resources sectors. He has over 16 years of experience in private banking, having held positions of significant responsibility at several of the foremost financial institutions including PARIBAS and Republic National Bank of NY.
Dr. Viviane Yargeau
Independent Director
Dr. Viviane Yargeau is a Professor in Chemical Engineering at McGill University and an Associate Member of the McGill School of Environment. Her expertise is in chemical & environmental engineering. She is a leader in the control of environmental pollutants and her research focuses on both fundamental and technological aspects leading to improvement of technologies to mitigate the release of pollutants in the environment and the development of green alternatives. Dr. Yargeau has co-developed the two Earth Alive flagship products. She leads her own group of researchers and has established strong research collaborations internationally as well as industrial collaboration. Her multidisciplinary research program also includes working closely with toxicologists in order to assess the impact of contaminants on the environment and public health. Dr. Yargeau serves on various committees including the international management committee of the International Water Association (IWA) Advanced Oxidation Processes Specialist Group. The innovative aspects of her research have already been recognized by several publications in peer-reviewed journals and international research awards.
David Colon
Independent Director
David Colon is an engineer who graduated in 1995 from the Ecole Polytechnique (X93 – Paris) and in 1998 from the National School of Rural Engineering for Water and Forests. He is also a graduate of the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale (1992) and was decorated in 2021 with the National Order of Merit. Mr. Colon is a specialist in water management and forest engineering as well as the geopolitics of energy and natural resources. Since 2014, he is Director of Institutional Relations at Veolia Water and is also responsible for coordinating CSR and managing alerts and crises for the whole of France. Since 2021, Veolia group has generated an annual revenue of €37 billion, with approximately 230,000 employees in more than 70 countries. Between 1998 and 2014, Mr. Colon hel different fonctions mainly in the management of public water and sanitation services. He also managed companies of the Veolia group for public transportation and industrial cleaning. In 2009, David Colon founded Up2Green Reforestation, an NGO dedicated to community reforestation for populations affected by the disappearance of their ecosystems in Africa, India and Central America. He is still the volunteer President. David Colon is also the permanent delegate of the French Strategic Committee for the Water industry. He also played a key role in the creation in 2017 of the Filière Française de l’Eau, a confederation of public and private actors in the water sector, of which he was the first President. He is co-author of the book “Drinking water in France: between invoice and fractures”, published in 2017.
Valérie Renard
Independent Director
Since 2020, Valérie Renard is the Chief Executive Officer of Hedera-22, a biotechnology company active in the discovery of next generation biomolecules presenting human and/or plant health benefits, mainly from soil bacteria, using in-house developed bio informatic predictive approaches. Before that, Mrs. Renard worked at Prayon S.A., a Belgium-based group specializing in phosphate chemistry. Mrs. Renard started at Prayon in 1995 as a Quality Manager, becoming a Technical Manager in 1999, a Vice-President in 2003 and a member of the Executive Committee in 2011, by then being responsible for Sales, Logistics & Marketing for the group. Valérie Renard is a Civil Engineer in Chemistry (1988, ULiège (Belgium)/University of Coventry (UK); magna cum laude) and has a Certificate in Global Management (INSEAD, France).
Nicolas Schlumberger
Independent Director
Nicolas Schlumberger is an international businessman who is currently President and Chief Executive Officer of Screencell Sa, a French biotech company that specializes in the early detection of cancers by way of liquid biopsy. The company was founded with the objective of designing and producing a simple and disposable technology allowing the fast and effective isolation of Circulating Tumor Cells from cancer patient’s blood. Mr. Schlumberger is also advisor to Skyre Inc., a US-based company with a focus on static electro-chemical separation of gases. Skyre’s mission is to work to decarbonize the world’s energy system by recycling to leave less waste, paving a smarter way to a better world. Mr. Schlumberger is actively involved in Coral Reef Capital, a private equity firm based in New York, specialized in natural resources founded by his eldest son, engaged in several mining operations in Nevada, He is a member of the board of directors of Western Exploration, a gold and silver district located in Aura County. From 2000 to 2020, Mr. Schlumberger was a successful entrepreneur in China. (Chengdu,Shanghai, Beijing) in multiple sectors introducing Western technologies and expertise: hi-tech manufacturing, leisure, telecom, TV broadcasting, water…
Erik Bomans
Independent Director
Since 2013, Erik Bomans is the Chief Executive Officer of Deminor Recovery Services, a company focused on legal finance solutions for businesses, investors, public authorities and charities. Deminor Recovery Services has offices in 9 countries and has conducted activities in more than 20 different jurisdictions. Its clients include some of the world’s largest institutional investors and corporations. Mr. Bomans founded Deminor Recovery Services in 2008 as a business unit of the Deminor group, from which it was spun off in 2013.
Prior to 2008, Erik Bomans was a partner of Deminor International. In this capacity, he advised and represented investors on various high-profile corporate finance transactions, special situations, as well as corporate governance and investor protection matters. A frequent speaker, he is considered an expert in corporate governance by the European and international press.
Prior to joining Deminor, Mr. Bomans practiced as a lawyer at the corporate law department of De Bandt, Van Hecke & Lagae (subsequently merged with Linklaters) in Brussels. Passionate about the environment, nature and organic farming, he founded Terre et Sens in 2020, a nature and organic farm based in Belgium.
Mr. Bomans has a law degree from the University of Leuven (Belgium) where he graduated in 1991. In 1993, he graduated from the Johns Hopkins University (Washington, D.C.) as a Master of Arts in international politics and economics. He was admitted to the Brussels Bar in 1996 and in 1997-1999, he pursued a two-year executive program in financial analysis organized by the Belgian Association of Financial Analysts (ABAF) and subsequently obtained the diploma of certified international investment analyst (CIIA).
Vladimir Wendl Ibarra
Independent Director
Vladimir Wendl graduated from the “Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales” (HEC) of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He has a degree in economics and business administration. Mr. Wendl has a multicultural profile and for more than three decades, he has lived and worked in 7 countries and 3 continents as a top executive for Nestlé, the world’s largest food company. He started his career in Switzerland, then took mid-management positions in Mexico and Russia, before reaching rapidly his first top management role. During the last 20 years, he performed as Managing Director and Board Member in Paraguay, Ivory Coast, Ukraine & Moldova, Norway & Iceland. His experience includes both developed & emerging markets as well as crisis management in war zones like Ivory Coast and Ukraine. He built several businesses from scratch and also reshaped some very mature ones. Mr. Wendl handled large scope responsibilities in terms of turnover, number of employees and strategic projects. He is a skilful communicator, strong in networking and an experienced team builder with passion for coupling business performance with sustainability. He set up proven sustainable ESG and R&D initiatives in different geographies. Mr. Wendl is now based in Oslo, Norway, where he became an independent entrepreneur, business owner and took several board positions, all related to biotech, environment and health, where his proficiency is mainly in governance, strategy, sustainability & people.